Grayson knots the straw wrapper he’s playing with. “I didn’t eat dinner.” Then he stares out the window, like he’s hung on the cathedral’s steeple piercing the night sky. A weathered iron cross tops the gothic spire, and it’s like he can’t look away.
He mentioned being from Cambridge.
My memories at Mass are quite different from the average person’s, I’m sure. Where their pews held hymnals, ours held holstered guns. Instead of Bibles slipped into the wooden slots behind the seats, made men slid folded contracts and paperwork of a different kind. Confessional? That wasn’t for repentance; it’s where arrangements were made behind the drawn curtains. Passed between organizations by none other than the priest, who knew better than to ask too many questions.
The Irish, the Italians, and God all under one roof.
I study Grayson. He’s quiet, but not the awkward, shy, introverted kind. More like the kind that makes you realizehe’s reading you, cataloging you, yet he gives nothing in return. It’s maddening. In my position, I uncover secrets and leverage pressure points. It’s an art, getting beneath their skin, finding out what they’d bleed for. But Grayson has very few tells. He stares like he feels and sees too much. It should make me wary, considering who he is and his profession.
Instead, it draws me in. Why is he alone in his picture on the tree?
“Did you use to come to church around here?” It’s a calculated guess from the way he’s scrutinizing the cathedral, like memories are playing in his head.
He nods, jaw locked.
“Do you spend a lot of time over here? Outside of work?”
He shakes his head, and I wince.
When I think my questions will remain unanswered, he speaks. “I chose something hard. Different. Not whattheywanted, and I’m hated for it.”
I take another sip. “Hated is a strong word.” What parents could hate their own flesh and blood?
He mimics my position and leans back, tucking his hands down into his pockets and frowns. “I experience the worst this city has to offer, but I show up. The power to protect and serve? Yeah, I want it. Wanted to stand between danger and the people who can’t stand up for themselves. But my family … they don’t see that. They only see the ink, the long hours, the crime, the cigarettes—but what does that have to do with loving my niece? What does that have to do with who I am at my core? I’d take a bullet for that little girl, for my brother and family. Even for my sister-in-law, who doesn’t want me around, but apparently that kind of dedication doesn’t look holy enough for them.”
I swallow as the pain in his voice twists the liquid chocolate in my stomach. I can’t imagine being pushed out by my family, and for what? Because he doesn’t go to Mass? Because he worksa job that hands him the shit end of the stick. I snort—they’dloveme. I kind of want to meet them.
“I’ve accepted I’m not the ‘golden son.’ I don’t conform to what they deem a Holtz should, I’m cut off from my niece. The last photo I got of her was … well, here.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He swipes a few times, then turns the screen toward me. An adorable black-haired, blue-eyed little girl smiles at the camera, and I smile back.
I glance at Grayson, then to the photo. “She looks like you. The family traits in there must be the black hair and the nose.”
He brings the phone back to himself, staring down at it. “She has my brother’s hair, the same as my mother’s and mine, but she has her mother’s eyes.”
My mind flickers to the only photos I have of my mother. “I have Laura’s eyes. My bio mom. My dad worried people would think I wasn’t his. Think they figured it out from talking to me, though.” I gulp, eyeing his down-turned expression. “I’m sorry. It must be hard not to see her.”
He shrugs. “I stopped trying to be who they wanted a long time ago. Not seeing my niece, that’s a tough one for me. If they don’t want me around, how could anyone else?”
My mouth drops open, and I’m about to respond to that when our food arrives. The waitress slides my Christmas pancakes in front of me, with round sprinkles acting as the ornaments decorating the tree. I saturate my plate with syrup and wrinkle my nose at the sticky handle on the dispenser. Glancing at my hot chocolate, then down at my pancakes, I grimace. It’s like a five-year-old ordered the meal.
Grayson’s plate houses a sad-looking burger and an abundance of french fries.
“Anything else?” the waitress asks.
Grayson shakes his head.
“Ketchup. Don’t you want some for your burger and fries?”
“No,” he says.
The waitress steps away as I stare dumbfounded at him. “Mustard? Mayo? Is there even cheese on that thing?”
“No.”
“You’re boring.”
“Yes.”
“But—”
